Every year, we love to create clever themed Christmas cards to send to our friends and family. Each year has been a bit of a challenge to create, but this year's card posed some unique problems. Namely, the theme was of the four Mack girls posing in a gingerbread house in a winter wonderland. The problem? We now live in Santa Clarita where it doesn't snow...ever.

Since giant gingerbread houses are in short supply at this time of year, we built our own out of wood and thick cardboard. We designed special candies for the front of the house out of tissue paper and colored cling wrap and spray painted the house to look more authentic. On a bright, windy day, the four of us carried the house into the backyard and posed in front of our palm tree (not very Christmassy, right?) The picture looked okay, but we wanted it to look a little more authentic. Emily took a photoshop class last semester, and we recruited her to do a little touch-up of the picture. Within a few hours, the Mack sisters had been transported into a wintery wonderland - the perfect touch for this year's Christmas picture.

Kathy and the girls then spent hours gluing, cutting, stamping, printing, and addressing over 250 handmade cards - quite the operation! Stacks of cards filled our house as we prepared them to be sent out. (If you look closely in the picture, you will notice the hidden Mickeys around the borders and in the back of the house you will see Christmas cards from past years).

We had a lot of fun and quite an adventure making these cards and are excited to see what next year's theme will bring.